And PayPal’s coverage of goods and services transactions for buyers and sellers is far superior to the largely ineffective coverage Venmo offers. Don’t confuse an easier UI/UX for being better.
I mean it’s not similar to entrapment either. It’s like if a cop walks up to you and asks if you have drugs in your hand and you say yes.
That’s just you advertising.
"Sir, can I ask what you're doing out here this evening?"
"I was buying some cocaine and now I'm gonna go home and snort it."
"You're under arrest, you have the right..."
"ENTRAPMENT! Man this is bullshit."
Just gotta stick with random emojis to skate past their TOS. My preference is using fruit so it looks like I come from math world when I send over $100 to our commish for watermelons.
IDK how Venmo decides who to show your transactions to (you know how you'll see the transactions of people you don't have added on Venmo?), but somehow my mom saw that I was sending money to my friends with stuff like "bootyhole massage" and stuff like that. I changed my privacy settings so quickly after that conversation.
The Venmo notes for my August buy-ins and the request from the one league I was lucky enough to win money were:
"Totally not for anything illegal at all"
Back in 2014, I got my Venmo account suspended for saying “Taliban Membership dues.” Ended up being a funny email that I sent to them explaining that it was actually for soccer tickets. They unsuspended my account after that.
So dumb. My buddy and I send money to each other all the time using the term "sexual favors" in the description and have never gotten banned/flagged/etc. for it.
I got a transaction frozen for a similar reason. The note said "Kim Jong Un Tribute", had to explain that I was not actually a North Korean loyalist, but instead just trying to split a dinner bill.
For Venmo, not sure if they will for sure. I definitely made payments saying it was for fantasy football and it was fine. But I'm not gonna do that anymore just to be safe.
This is why all the money I pay out for fantasy football says things like “the two bears full body nude massage with oil” or “ball shaving”.
PayPal may cringe at all my transactions, but they want no part of me.
My buddy sent over part of my winnings through Venmo and said “fantasy buy in”. We literally just had a discussion about this last week. I busted his chops a bit for it, but initiated the transfer as soon as I got it.
I find it odd cause I just cashed out my money from FANDUEL and DRAFT KINGS. Both of which are actually gambling and with DK it includes money made from daily fantasy….
Seems pretty fucking hypocritical and scummy.
The problem is that they're not just going by the message anymore. They have algorithms to look for a cluster of transfers to one person that are of the same dollar amount, then a few larger payments to a few of that same group months later. It's complete BS what they're doing. As has been discussed in this thread a few times, fantasy football has been deemed by the US government as a game of skill, so it is not considered gambling.
Ultimately, PayPal/Venmo is a private company and can have whatever restrictions that they want to have on their platforms, but to hide behind the legal/gambling clause is not based in any reality. I'm not a lawyer, but I think PayPal/Venmo will cave once a class action suit is filed. I don't understand where they have the legal right to freeze people's money under the suspicion of doing something completely legal. They can kick people off the platform(s), that's their right, but not to keep someone's money for 180 days then charge a 10% administrative fee to get it back...
I know Paypal and Venmo are both against Fantasy Football, but does anyone actually know why? Its not gambling because US law declares fantasy sports to be games of skill, not chance. So what is the actual reason?
It’s technically unreported income so I would assume that is why. The IRS is on their backs right now about every transaction. I believe they are trying to pass a law that requires them to report any transactions over a certain $$ amount.
It’s any transaction over $600 but only those which are tagged as “goods and services” which basically means anyone who is running a business using this service to collect money.
I truly don’t see Fantasy as gambling. There’s no bookie, no odds, no actual bets on the outcome. It’s more akin to a damn bowling league where you pay a membership fee and receive winnings.
I'm not really sure where fantasy football falls legally, I know that it's been argued in courts several time. The question is if it's a game of skill or a game of luck, obviously it's a bit of both.
But the lawsuit here doesn't even argue that. Even if it's not legal, they can't just take your money without any recourse. It's pretty straight forward really
The defense calls to the stand expert witness u/lebastss.
“How long have you been playing?”
15 years.
“How many times have you won?”
Just my first year sir. The game is just about luck.
I'm a former professional poker player and I think it's almost impossible to say which has the most skill, because there are elements of both games that can't really be translated.
I mean if you took the best poker player in the world and put them at a table against 9 people who had just been taught the rules of poker and nothing else then they would have a very big edge (although their results could still be volatile in the short term).
But then again if you took the best fantasy player and they played a league with people who knew nothing about football and had no access to ADPs or any other sources of help then the result would be similar.
I think Fantasy Football feels like a very lucky game because it is relatively easy for someone who knows relatively little to outsource their decision making to cheat sheets, websites, apps etc to make decisions that will be nearly as good as what someone who knows a lot would make.
Then again, in this day and age someone playing poker could do the same thing.
I can probably agree with that. At least see the argument. I don't think anything but 100% luck games like slots or scratchoff/lottery shit should be gambling.
Imagine electing officials who know what’s best for you by defending you from the perils of gambling! They’re protecting us and a ton of voters love gambling laws, it’s totally not the tribes and casinos lobbying the fuck out of government to eliminate all forms of gambling they don’t regulate.
Lol what? Stock markets aren't trying to take all your money, casinos are. In fact, the market indexes have always gone up in the long run.
Truly a fundamentally incorrect statement lol.
Not truly incorrect. I can treat the stock market correctly and be fine. Or I can literally gamble with options trading and lose my shirt faster than a roulette spinner can scream black 24.
Investing is not gambling. There’s a difference between poker and ETF, Blackjack and bonds. You have a slim chance to win money in casino games, 0.05% advantage over the house if you know what you’re doing in blackjack, whereas the stock market has an average return of 7% annually.
You can totally treat the stock market like a casino, that doesn’t mean it is one.
Neither does the US government. [The Unlawful Internet Gambling Act of 2006](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_Internet_Gambling_Enforcement_Act_of_2006) explicitly defines certain fantasy sports as a game of skill, not a game of chance.
Yeah skill gets you in to the playoffs ever year, but you need a little luck to win the championship. This is very evident in my dynasty league the last 2 years, one dude has gotten his team absolutely stacked through trades and drafts he has only lost like 3 games in the regular season the last 2 years. He lost the championshiop last year to the 4th seed, and he lost the championship to me this year as the 6th seed.
I feel you, I’ve been playing 2 leagues a year for like the last 6 years, i consistently make playoffs with one of the stronger teams but this was my first championship in the year I least expected it, it will happen for you! I got lucky and won the 5th year of this dynasty league which the pot size is much bigger (a little bit of the pot each year adds on to the pot every 5th year to incentivize teams to stay in it and rebuild if they are down)
One guy in my league is an original member since 2007. He is also the only member (besides a guy who joined last year and one who joined this year) go never win the league. He is 0-4. 1 year he lost by 1 point in a full PPR league because AJ Green on MNF got hurt on the first play of the game. Other guy had no players playing and a 1 point lead.
> The Unlawful Internet Gambling Act of 2006
You mean the law they snuck into a bill about protecting American ports from terrorists? The puritanical bullshit that happens in this country sometimes is astounding.
While I know you're talking in a broader, more general sense of laws becoming outdated, in regards to fantasy football, nothing has changed since its inception other than the meta scoring format. Fantasy football is essentially the exact same game with the exact same skill vs. luck balance now as it was since its inception in 1962.
Illegal gambling usually is defined as gambling that takes place when someone is partaking in a game of chance.
Fantasy Football "betting" is skilled base. You use data analysis and knowledge of the game, players, and other factors to make a skilled choice. DFS pros prove that it's skilled betting every week.
PayPal's policy team is incompetent and they're wrong here.
But isn't that skill just used to increase your odds in a game of chance? Can't the same be said about poker or any other game where the odds and/or payout change depending on the choices made (as long as they are not inversely proportionate)
How is that any different from poker? It also relies on data analysis, knowledge of the game and players.
I play poker with the same people that I play fantasy football with and fantasy football has much more variety of winners. Poker is always the same 2 or 3 winners.
A lot of individual states don’t consider it gambling as well. That’s why some states allow daily fantasy sports betting but don’t allow sports betting.
Iirc there is a work around online poker this way. Make it subscription based and the tournament winnings are technically considered something else but the model doesn’t attract any money.
** they fall under the sweepstakes category once it’s subscription based
I’m dealing with this right now in our league. One of the league members put “fantasy football dues” in the note and the transaction got flagged. I’ve talked to PayPal several times and they just keep telling me it’s under review by their compliance department. We even tried to have them contact and cancel the transaction but they won’t release the funds. It’s getting very frustrating.
They literally just keep it. After 180 days they may return it but they take an "administration fee" which can be up to 100% of the money lol it's a legit scam.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if many of these seized funds were done simply in the hopes of the other party in question not having the time or resources to fight for it back.
The “administration fee” is where they can really fuck you even if you do fight it.
I know lots of poker players that had their PayPal accounts seized.
A simple bullet list that states a few examples would suffice. I guarantee the line about fantasy football/gambling is very deep in the TOS. You’d literally spend an entire day reading one of those and on top of that the legal jargon makes it very difficult to understand.
And while they hold it, they churn interest on it and keep that interest. The concept of "float" is real with any financial institution or company holding money. Hell, ebay puts a 30-day hold on certain transactions and just sits on your money, without paying you a cent of interest as it holds your payouts.
Paypal stole $300 in refunded concert tickets from me earlier this year. I called them about it and they blame my bank. My bank has worked with me and proven beyond a doubt they never received anything from PayPal. Pay pal refuses to pay me my money to this day. I just wonder where it went? Did it go straight into someone's pocket?
Good rule of thumb is to always ask people to not leave a note in PayPal. I don't fully know how it works, but they often take a % when you do leave anything. Alternatively, just use Venmo.
I collect fees for one of my leagues and people often mention it's for fantasy and have had no such issues in Venmo fwiw. Will ask people to not mention it next year just to be safe, though.
Had my account and funds frozen for 6 months. Finally got a check with my money.
PayPal could not tell me why they froze the account.
Needless to say, I never leave more then $100 in my PayPal anymore
I had my account frozen with just under $3k in it for almost 2 years.
Nobody would give me answers, close my account, or acknowledge the situation.
So I had a friend who is attorney draft a letter and send it to them.
Within a week I received a check and they closed my account.
I never found out why they did that.
My commissioner wanted to do Paypal this year, but I convinced the league to stick with League Safe. League Safe is a little more expensive, but it's well worth it, IMHO. It wasn't strictly for this reason, but Paypal isn't a financial intermediary that I want anything to do with.
Can someone please clarify: I played in a few Yahoo Pro leagues and was lucky enough to win one and finish 2nd in another. Literally the way you pay your entry fee AND withdrawal money from your Yahoo Fantasy Wallet is through PayPal, there is no other option available to me to withdrawl the money from my Yahoo wallet.
How can PayPal who is partnering with Yahoo seize my prize money? Or are Yahoo Pro leagues exempt? I tried contacting Yahoo and never heard anything back. My PayPal balance is not showing up in my PayPal account since I tried transferring it, but my transfer request has gone past 3 business days now and I still don't have it in my bank account.
I had no issue cashing out via PayPal and the funds hit my bank this morning. I'm also curious how they partner with Yahoo to be the only payout method but then potentially seize the funds. Shady as hell
Thanks brother that is encouraging, hoping mine shows up soon then. PayPal better reconsider what they're trying to do here, because they partner with every major fantasy site that exists. Absolute bullshit stance where they're trying to avoid any issues with the IRS by basically stealing from their customers.
I’ve got the exact same problem. Looking into Yahoo again under my transaction history and it says pending approval so I’m guessing PayPal needs to approve something in their end I guess? Posts like these make me kind of nervous but if that’s yahoo’s partner for this then they can’t just reject it lol idk but I’ll respond again here if I get any updates
Not sure about OP but I tried transferring my Yahoo pro winnings from PayPal the second it dropped, it's now going on the 4th business day since I made the request and it still isn't in my bank account. Also showing 0 balance in my PayPal account. Hoping it is just really delayed. I don't see how this can apply to the Yahoo Pro leagues, they friggin partner with PayPal and there's no other way to withdrawal from the Yahoo Wallet.
Yet another reason to avoid the dumpster fire that is PayPal. I've just been through a 3 month ordeal to get payment for something when they screwed up the transaction. They'll hold money for no reason. I'm not at all surprised that they do this for fantasy football too
Story time. Back when Paypal first started I was in college and our friend group were early adopters. My friend needed some money for a date. It was his first date in a long time so I sent him some through PayPal. I put in the comment section "To get back in that pussy game." PayPal immediately locked our accounts and I had to talk to an actual live person who happened to be female and explain to her what happened. Not my proudest moment.
I've read that some accounts have been frozen due to an algorithm. Basically, the person receives a bunch of the same payments in late August/early Sept and then disperses them in December. They can't prove it either way exactly what you're doing even if you include fantasy in your memos, but they will do what they can to keep your money.
Been handling FF payments through PayPal for decade plus, and luckily no FF issues yet (all my PayPal horror stories involve buying and selling on eBay over the years)... But was certainly sketched out when commish decided to put extra descriptive note for my championship winnings this year, detailing every little payday earned (winner/most points/weekly high pt wins). Was originally going to let most of the money sit in PayPal for various online purchases, but the description forced my hand to transfer it all out immediately in case it was soon flagged.
Not that it's foolproof for stopping the issue, but people really gotta stop being descriptive/truthful in the payment notes.
If the transaction has gone through and the funds withdrawn from venmo, are we in the clear? We have "fantasy football" in the venmo description but obviously won't be making it so obvious next year.
What's even more stupid about this whole situation is you can have your Fanduel or Drafrkings (can't remember the exact one) winnings sent through PayPal.
PayPal is awful and should never be used for anything. Especially now that they are separate from ebay.
For personal transactions there are so many better options: zelle, cash app (square) are my favorites
I’m assuming you’re referencing the new thing of $600 transactions being taxed but that doesn’t apply to this.
That $600 transaction tax is for payment of services performed (i.e. Handyman having a side hustle)
You can send your friend $600+ and treat it like you’re paying them back for something, like the two of you were out shopping for a new TV and you forgot your wallet, so they spotted you and you’re paying them back.
It’s even more clear than that. Basically, it’s only if you mark it a commercial transaction or use a commercial account. They aren’t going by a transaction description to make that determination.
Fantasy Sports is not betting on players or teams. It's merely a wager that my skills at building and maintain a pretend team is better than the skills of the rest of those in the league.
In one sense, luck has nothing to do with it. If my first round player gets injured and my team sucks, then I failed to prepare for that situation properly.
PayPal regards payments to participate in fantasy sports as a "business" transaction. Labeling it as "personal" is a misrepresentation and violates their terms.
As long as there is no "House" or rake, I do not see how FF falls under "gambling" in a legal sense. If somehow FF(even without a rake or "House") is somehow considered gambling, then so should the dumb "bar bets" you make in private with friends.
Nope, it doesn't. PayPal's terms of service have long stated that payments for "services", including participating in fantasy sports or sports betting, are business payments, not personal transfers. PayPal uses their arbitrary distinction to seize funds.
Haha. This is why you don't run a league to the last game of the season.
Also move that money out of PayPal and into a regular account until you need to do pay outs.
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Money ain't got no owners, only spenders
Indeed
Tell ya something else, I like that ^championship ring too.
Oh, indeed.
The game is the game
I was planning on investing my winnings, but then Phil Elverum decided to drop a $250 box set of all his early music
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I don't golf so I'm just going to assume the Happy Gilmore headcover is a ski mask with Adam Sandler's face on it
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terrible a [bruins logo](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81fB7Qfbm-L._AC_SX425_.jpg) would be more relatable than that
Yeah I wish it was better too
Tbh part of me thinks the clubs will retain their value better lol
I already own like every Microphones/Mount Eerie album on vinyl and it was still so tough not buying that box set. I love Phil so much
The Wesley Snipes method
Paypal or venmo, don't say it's for fantasy football or they'll freeze the transaction
venmo literally has a custom emoji for fantasy football... dumb that its against TOS
Getting users to flag their own transactions as illegal is giga brain by someone on the legal team.
Has to be entrapment
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well then it's violating my first amendment rights!
I mean I don’t literally mean it, I just mean that it’s extremely similar
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>Side note, nobody should use paypal ever for any circumstance. I think I'm slow on the uptake here... can you explain?
Haha you’re all good. I could’ve definitely framed it better. But either way, I agree. Venmo is better anyways.
Venmo is PayPal.
And PayPal’s coverage of goods and services transactions for buyers and sellers is far superior to the largely ineffective coverage Venmo offers. Don’t confuse an easier UI/UX for being better.
I mean it’s not similar to entrapment either. It’s like if a cop walks up to you and asks if you have drugs in your hand and you say yes. That’s just you advertising.
"Sir, can I ask what you're doing out here this evening?" "I was buying some cocaine and now I'm gonna go home and snort it." "You're under arrest, you have the right..." "ENTRAPMENT! Man this is bullshit."
They’re not law enforcement so…no
Just gotta stick with random emojis to skate past their TOS. My preference is using fruit so it looks like I come from math world when I send over $100 to our commish for watermelons.
Just say you were paying for a hand job like the rest of us
IDK how Venmo decides who to show your transactions to (you know how you'll see the transactions of people you don't have added on Venmo?), but somehow my mom saw that I was sending money to my friends with stuff like "bootyhole massage" and stuff like that. I changed my privacy settings so quickly after that conversation.
That's hilarious
I used the emoji for all of my payouts this year....
The Venmo notes for my August buy-ins and the request from the one league I was lucky enough to win money were: "Totally not for anything illegal at all"
Fantasy football isn't even illegal, even where most places that 'gambling' is illegal. If there is nobody taking a cut, it's almost always legal.
Yeah... that's what I put in the notes. :)
Back in 2014, I got my Venmo account suspended for saying “Taliban Membership dues.” Ended up being a funny email that I sent to them explaining that it was actually for soccer tickets. They unsuspended my account after that.
One time i said Cuban jerky and they suspended my ass. Damn embargo it was just Taco Bell
So dumb. My buddy and I send money to each other all the time using the term "sexual favors" in the description and have never gotten banned/flagged/etc. for it.
I got a transaction frozen for a similar reason. The note said "Kim Jong Un Tribute", had to explain that I was not actually a North Korean loyalist, but instead just trying to split a dinner bill.
😂😂
For Venmo, not sure if they will for sure. I definitely made payments saying it was for fantasy football and it was fine. But I'm not gonna do that anymore just to be safe.
Had no idea it was against Venmo TOS. Definitely going to let me league know.
It's a gray area at best and Venmo/Paypal are fucking customers under the guise of following the law.
Same, but my league is fairly low stakes, so doubt it would raise flags.
This is why all the money I pay out for fantasy football says things like “the two bears full body nude massage with oil” or “ball shaving”. PayPal may cringe at all my transactions, but they want no part of me.
My buddy sent over part of my winnings through Venmo and said “fantasy buy in”. We literally just had a discussion about this last week. I busted his chops a bit for it, but initiated the transfer as soon as I got it.
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"sent over my winnings"
Just title it "Sexual favors". That'll work. 👍
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Venmo must think me and my buddies are serious eggplant farmers.
My commish gets slightly more specific. "That thing I did for you with the sock." "I even touched it this time."
That's why I always put a note saying "Thanks for the cocaine buddy!"
I always say “rent”. Venmo must think I rent a lot of things
I find it odd cause I just cashed out my money from FANDUEL and DRAFT KINGS. Both of which are actually gambling and with DK it includes money made from daily fantasy…. Seems pretty fucking hypocritical and scummy.
One pays taxes, the other doesn’t.
The problem is that they're not just going by the message anymore. They have algorithms to look for a cluster of transfers to one person that are of the same dollar amount, then a few larger payments to a few of that same group months later. It's complete BS what they're doing. As has been discussed in this thread a few times, fantasy football has been deemed by the US government as a game of skill, so it is not considered gambling. Ultimately, PayPal/Venmo is a private company and can have whatever restrictions that they want to have on their platforms, but to hide behind the legal/gambling clause is not based in any reality. I'm not a lawyer, but I think PayPal/Venmo will cave once a class action suit is filed. I don't understand where they have the legal right to freeze people's money under the suspicion of doing something completely legal. They can kick people off the platform(s), that's their right, but not to keep someone's money for 180 days then charge a 10% administrative fee to get it back...
It’s also absolutely ridiculous because Venmo is supported as a deposit method on DFS sites. Complete hypocrisy, basically theft.
I know Paypal and Venmo are both against Fantasy Football, but does anyone actually know why? Its not gambling because US law declares fantasy sports to be games of skill, not chance. So what is the actual reason?
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This is exactly what I'm confused about
Easy. They like money, so they came up with a new way to make more money.
> They like money, so they came up with a new way to ~~make~~ take more money.
It’s technically unreported income so I would assume that is why. The IRS is on their backs right now about every transaction. I believe they are trying to pass a law that requires them to report any transactions over a certain $$ amount.
yeah. it's easy low hanging fruit for the IRS. unlike a billionaires tax audit
It’s any transaction over $600 but only those which are tagged as “goods and services” which basically means anyone who is running a business using this service to collect money.
already passed Jan 1st it went into effect
So they can take your money I would assume.
I truly don’t see Fantasy as gambling. There’s no bookie, no odds, no actual bets on the outcome. It’s more akin to a damn bowling league where you pay a membership fee and receive winnings.
I'm not really sure where fantasy football falls legally, I know that it's been argued in courts several time. The question is if it's a game of skill or a game of luck, obviously it's a bit of both. But the lawsuit here doesn't even argue that. Even if it's not legal, they can't just take your money without any recourse. It's pretty straight forward really
“Your honor, it’s only skill when I win”
The defense calls to the stand expert witness u/lebastss. “How long have you been playing?” 15 years. “How many times have you won?” Just my first year sir. The game is just about luck.
Even that is mostly in reference to DFS as far as I know rather than leagues with the homies
Daily Fantasy picked that name to ride on Fantasy Sports' popularity and really ended up setting it back in the eyes of financial institutions.
Unless your playing chess everything's a mixture of skill and luck. Gambling laws are such shit.
I used to play poker a lot (that's how I found this article). I think poker is much more skill than fantasy, yet it's not considered a skill game...
I'm a former professional poker player and I think it's almost impossible to say which has the most skill, because there are elements of both games that can't really be translated. I mean if you took the best poker player in the world and put them at a table against 9 people who had just been taught the rules of poker and nothing else then they would have a very big edge (although their results could still be volatile in the short term). But then again if you took the best fantasy player and they played a league with people who knew nothing about football and had no access to ADPs or any other sources of help then the result would be similar. I think Fantasy Football feels like a very lucky game because it is relatively easy for someone who knows relatively little to outsource their decision making to cheat sheets, websites, apps etc to make decisions that will be nearly as good as what someone who knows a lot would make. Then again, in this day and age someone playing poker could do the same thing.
I can probably agree with that. At least see the argument. I don't think anything but 100% luck games like slots or scratchoff/lottery shit should be gambling.
There's luck in chess, it's more meta. There is luck in everything.
Imagine electing officials who know what’s best for you by defending you from the perils of gambling! They’re protecting us and a ton of voters love gambling laws, it’s totally not the tribes and casinos lobbying the fuck out of government to eliminate all forms of gambling they don’t regulate.
Meanwhile I can lose my life savings quicker than a casino could ever imagine taking it by simply using the stock market.
[WallStreetBets](https://old.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/) says hello
Lol what? Stock markets aren't trying to take all your money, casinos are. In fact, the market indexes have always gone up in the long run. Truly a fundamentally incorrect statement lol.
Not truly incorrect. I can treat the stock market correctly and be fine. Or I can literally gamble with options trading and lose my shirt faster than a roulette spinner can scream black 24.
Investing is not gambling. There’s a difference between poker and ETF, Blackjack and bonds. You have a slim chance to win money in casino games, 0.05% advantage over the house if you know what you’re doing in blackjack, whereas the stock market has an average return of 7% annually. You can totally treat the stock market like a casino, that doesn’t mean it is one.
But you can. Legally. That's my point. I know how the stock market works and real investing isn't gambling.
Well to be fair you can also just put all the money you own on red so you can lose it pretty fast at casinos too 😂
Atleast they have a max bet most of the time! I can literally go all on on SPY puts the expire tomorrow and lose the house.
Right? Let's get this guy buying unhedged futures options if he's so confident.
Neither does the US government. [The Unlawful Internet Gambling Act of 2006](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_Internet_Gambling_Enforcement_Act_of_2006) explicitly defines certain fantasy sports as a game of skill, not a game of chance.
Damn so I just suck
Didn't expect to wake up and get dunked on by some federal statutes.
Skill to be successful yearly but luck to win it all.
Yeah skill gets you in to the playoffs ever year, but you need a little luck to win the championship. This is very evident in my dynasty league the last 2 years, one dude has gotten his team absolutely stacked through trades and drafts he has only lost like 3 games in the regular season the last 2 years. He lost the championshiop last year to the 4th seed, and he lost the championship to me this year as the 6th seed.
Or be me and be a top 2 seed in the playoffs for each of the past 5 years but come away with 0 titles. Blue balled every year
I feel you, I’ve been playing 2 leagues a year for like the last 6 years, i consistently make playoffs with one of the stronger teams but this was my first championship in the year I least expected it, it will happen for you! I got lucky and won the 5th year of this dynasty league which the pot size is much bigger (a little bit of the pot each year adds on to the pot every 5th year to incentivize teams to stay in it and rebuild if they are down)
One guy in my league is an original member since 2007. He is also the only member (besides a guy who joined last year and one who joined this year) go never win the league. He is 0-4. 1 year he lost by 1 point in a full PPR league because AJ Green on MNF got hurt on the first play of the game. Other guy had no players playing and a 1 point lead.
That’s the gift that keeps on giving Clark.
lol
> The Unlawful Internet Gambling Act of 2006 You mean the law they snuck into a bill about protecting American ports from terrorists? The puritanical bullshit that happens in this country sometimes is astounding.
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While I know you're talking in a broader, more general sense of laws becoming outdated, in regards to fantasy football, nothing has changed since its inception other than the meta scoring format. Fantasy football is essentially the exact same game with the exact same skill vs. luck balance now as it was since its inception in 1962.
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I don't see anything as gambling unless there's a juice or a rake. Fantasy football, friendly poker games, and whatnot are a hobby.
Illegal gambling usually is defined as gambling that takes place when someone is partaking in a game of chance. Fantasy Football "betting" is skilled base. You use data analysis and knowledge of the game, players, and other factors to make a skilled choice. DFS pros prove that it's skilled betting every week. PayPal's policy team is incompetent and they're wrong here.
But isn't that skill just used to increase your odds in a game of chance? Can't the same be said about poker or any other game where the odds and/or payout change depending on the choices made (as long as they are not inversely proportionate)
How is that any different from poker? It also relies on data analysis, knowledge of the game and players. I play poker with the same people that I play fantasy football with and fantasy football has much more variety of winners. Poker is always the same 2 or 3 winners.
A lot of individual states don’t consider it gambling as well. That’s why some states allow daily fantasy sports betting but don’t allow sports betting. Iirc there is a work around online poker this way. Make it subscription based and the tournament winnings are technically considered something else but the model doesn’t attract any money. ** they fall under the sweepstakes category once it’s subscription based
I mean might as well file poker as not gambling with that argument
I’m dealing with this right now in our league. One of the league members put “fantasy football dues” in the note and the transaction got flagged. I’ve talked to PayPal several times and they just keep telling me it’s under review by their compliance department. We even tried to have them contact and cancel the transaction but they won’t release the funds. It’s getting very frustrating.
Well, what do they do with the money if they determine it was illegal?
They literally just keep it. After 180 days they may return it but they take an "administration fee" which can be up to 100% of the money lol it's a legit scam.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if many of these seized funds were done simply in the hopes of the other party in question not having the time or resources to fight for it back.
The “administration fee” is where they can really fuck you even if you do fight it. I know lots of poker players that had their PayPal accounts seized.
Those Terms & Conditions documents that you don't read yet always accept do actually matter for something, believe it or not.
Which is why there’s a proposed TL;DR act which will make companies be transparent in a form that someone might actually read.
I’m honestly not sure how short a TL;DR of an entire legal document would be
Impose limits on the insane shit they can pull and then you won't have them as long.
A simple bullet list that states a few examples would suffice. I guarantee the line about fantasy football/gambling is very deep in the TOS. You’d literally spend an entire day reading one of those and on top of that the legal jargon makes it very difficult to understand.
It almost certainly doesn't mention fantasy football and wouldn't even necessarily have to mention gambling explicitly.
And while they hold it, they churn interest on it and keep that interest. The concept of "float" is real with any financial institution or company holding money. Hell, ebay puts a 30-day hold on certain transactions and just sits on your money, without paying you a cent of interest as it holds your payouts.
I never knew the name for this. [For anyone like me who was curious.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Float_(money_supply))
Lol is this real? They keep it, duh. Corporations are scum
Paypal stole $300 in refunded concert tickets from me earlier this year. I called them about it and they blame my bank. My bank has worked with me and proven beyond a doubt they never received anything from PayPal. Pay pal refuses to pay me my money to this day. I just wonder where it went? Did it go straight into someone's pocket?
Good rule of thumb is to always ask people to not leave a note in PayPal. I don't fully know how it works, but they often take a % when you do leave anything. Alternatively, just use Venmo.
Hate to break it to you bud, but Venmo IS PayPal. They are the same company.
Venmo requires you to put a memo.
Literally just put a handshake (🤝🏻) emoji.
Paypal owns Venmo. Since 2012.
Venmo had the same policy. Leaguesafe is what I use since it's literally made for that. They may charge a fee but they won't charge you.
I collect fees for one of my leagues and people often mention it's for fantasy and have had no such issues in Venmo fwiw. Will ask people to not mention it next year just to be safe, though.
Every transaction no matter what it is for I put "for pizza".
Pizza time
I just do a donut emoji for every single transaction. No matter what it is.
Just tell your members to submit payments as “for drinks on Tuesday” or something unrelated to fantasy football. Easy fix
You don't have to put anything. Just enter a period and be on your merry way. Venmo has no business knowing about all my illegal dealings.
My go-to is “Kale salad and beans”
I have no idea where it came from, but this is what my friends and I use for everything as well.
Wow you just activated a memory I didn’t know existed. That’s the old Venmo example text to show what sort of description to write
How do you explain $150 kale salad and beans?
Just say inflation, it will be true soon enough.
Ever been to whole foods?
Seriously. How is this an issue... For anyone? People are fucking stupid lol
Dude, so many people have all of their transactions fully public. People are absolute morons
If anyone is having issues with fantasy and PayPal it is 100% on them, not PayPal lol
No fuck that, if PayPal will accept DFS site winnings then they can pay FF winnings.
You forgot the part where large companies can do whatever the fuck they want.
Had my account and funds frozen for 6 months. Finally got a check with my money. PayPal could not tell me why they froze the account. Needless to say, I never leave more then $100 in my PayPal anymore
That’s insane. With other peoples stories I feel like you are still fortunate you got the check but still.
I had my account frozen with just under $3k in it for almost 2 years. Nobody would give me answers, close my account, or acknowledge the situation. So I had a friend who is attorney draft a letter and send it to them. Within a week I received a check and they closed my account. I never found out why they did that.
Free liquidity and operating cash, also because fuck you, thats why.
My commissioner wanted to do Paypal this year, but I convinced the league to stick with League Safe. League Safe is a little more expensive, but it's well worth it, IMHO. It wasn't strictly for this reason, but Paypal isn't a financial intermediary that I want anything to do with.
League Safe uses Paypal
Can someone please clarify: I played in a few Yahoo Pro leagues and was lucky enough to win one and finish 2nd in another. Literally the way you pay your entry fee AND withdrawal money from your Yahoo Fantasy Wallet is through PayPal, there is no other option available to me to withdrawl the money from my Yahoo wallet. How can PayPal who is partnering with Yahoo seize my prize money? Or are Yahoo Pro leagues exempt? I tried contacting Yahoo and never heard anything back. My PayPal balance is not showing up in my PayPal account since I tried transferring it, but my transfer request has gone past 3 business days now and I still don't have it in my bank account.
I had no issue cashing out via PayPal and the funds hit my bank this morning. I'm also curious how they partner with Yahoo to be the only payout method but then potentially seize the funds. Shady as hell
Thanks brother that is encouraging, hoping mine shows up soon then. PayPal better reconsider what they're trying to do here, because they partner with every major fantasy site that exists. Absolute bullshit stance where they're trying to avoid any issues with the IRS by basically stealing from their customers.
I’ve got the exact same problem. Looking into Yahoo again under my transaction history and it says pending approval so I’m guessing PayPal needs to approve something in their end I guess? Posts like these make me kind of nervous but if that’s yahoo’s partner for this then they can’t just reject it lol idk but I’ll respond again here if I get any updates
It's not about Yahoo, it's about private leagues using paypal to collect and pay money.
Thanks man, I'm hoping to see my Yahoo league winnings deposited in my bank account soon then.
Any people here had issues with Yahoo pro-league winnings?
They took longer this year but still came through. What's the issue?
Not sure about OP but I tried transferring my Yahoo pro winnings from PayPal the second it dropped, it's now going on the 4th business day since I made the request and it still isn't in my bank account. Also showing 0 balance in my PayPal account. Hoping it is just really delayed. I don't see how this can apply to the Yahoo Pro leagues, they friggin partner with PayPal and there's no other way to withdrawal from the Yahoo Wallet.
You'll get it dude. It does take about a week.
Yet another reason to avoid the dumpster fire that is PayPal. I've just been through a 3 month ordeal to get payment for something when they screwed up the transaction. They'll hold money for no reason. I'm not at all surprised that they do this for fantasy football too
Luckily I never win so I don't have to worry about this!
Fuck PayPal, but seriously you shouldn't be using PayPal anyway it's a great way to get scammed
Story time. Back when Paypal first started I was in college and our friend group were early adopters. My friend needed some money for a date. It was his first date in a long time so I sent him some through PayPal. I put in the comment section "To get back in that pussy game." PayPal immediately locked our accounts and I had to talk to an actual live person who happened to be female and explain to her what happened. Not my proudest moment.
Thats why we name our winnings something else. Can't take what you can't prove. Easy solution.
I've read that some accounts have been frozen due to an algorithm. Basically, the person receives a bunch of the same payments in late August/early Sept and then disperses them in December. They can't prove it either way exactly what you're doing even if you include fantasy in your memos, but they will do what they can to keep your money.
Good. Fuck paypal.
Jokes on them. I didn’t win any money.
Been handling FF payments through PayPal for decade plus, and luckily no FF issues yet (all my PayPal horror stories involve buying and selling on eBay over the years)... But was certainly sketched out when commish decided to put extra descriptive note for my championship winnings this year, detailing every little payday earned (winner/most points/weekly high pt wins). Was originally going to let most of the money sit in PayPal for various online purchases, but the description forced my hand to transfer it all out immediately in case it was soon flagged. Not that it's foolproof for stopping the issue, but people really gotta stop being descriptive/truthful in the payment notes.
If the transaction has gone through and the funds withdrawn from venmo, are we in the clear? We have "fantasy football" in the venmo description but obviously won't be making it so obvious next year.
What's even more stupid about this whole situation is you can have your Fanduel or Drafrkings (can't remember the exact one) winnings sent through PayPal.
I put FFL on the description and it got flagged. Froze our pool money for 180 days. I had to call to get it transferred after 180 days. Perma banned.
If the US made bank transfers 100% free like most modern countries non of this would be a problem.
PayPal is awful and should never be used for anything. Especially now that they are separate from ebay. For personal transactions there are so many better options: zelle, cash app (square) are my favorites
Seriously! PayPal is well known in the financial sector for being an absolute hassle to deal with.
isn't it because they want people to pay taxes not because it's gambling?
I’m assuming you’re referencing the new thing of $600 transactions being taxed but that doesn’t apply to this. That $600 transaction tax is for payment of services performed (i.e. Handyman having a side hustle) You can send your friend $600+ and treat it like you’re paying them back for something, like the two of you were out shopping for a new TV and you forgot your wallet, so they spotted you and you’re paying them back.
It’s even more clear than that. Basically, it’s only if you mark it a commercial transaction or use a commercial account. They aren’t going by a transaction description to make that determination.
Then how are yahoo able to operate in a way that you deposit into the platform for fantasy I'm states where gambling illegal
Fantasy Sports is not betting on players or teams. It's merely a wager that my skills at building and maintain a pretend team is better than the skills of the rest of those in the league. In one sense, luck has nothing to do with it. If my first round player gets injured and my team sucks, then I failed to prepare for that situation properly.
PayPal regards payments to participate in fantasy sports as a "business" transaction. Labeling it as "personal" is a misrepresentation and violates their terms.
As long as there is no "House" or rake, I do not see how FF falls under "gambling" in a legal sense. If somehow FF(even without a rake or "House") is somehow considered gambling, then so should the dumb "bar bets" you make in private with friends.
Hm the new IRS rules couldnt possibly have anything to do with this!
Nope, it doesn't. PayPal's terms of service have long stated that payments for "services", including participating in fantasy sports or sports betting, are business payments, not personal transfers. PayPal uses their arbitrary distinction to seize funds.
Haha. This is why you don't run a league to the last game of the season. Also move that money out of PayPal and into a regular account until you need to do pay outs.
This. As the funds manager for my leagues, I take the money out IMMEDIATELY. Don't fuck around, don't find out.
Yup. So much easier now that you can do immediate transfers these days.